Aliya

The Hebrew word for immigration to the Land of Israel is Aliyah (lit. ascent). The meaning of ascent in this context is spiritual as well as physical; all Jews are educated in the belief that this ascent is an essential part of Judaism. It is the ultimate form of identification with one's people, the Jewish people, whose life and destiny are inextricably tied to the Land of Israel. Aliya is therefore a fundamental aspiration of Zionism and the raison d'etre of the State of Israel. The Law of Return (1950) grants every Jew the right to come to Israel as an immigrant and automatically become a citizen. Since the establishment of the State, more than two and a half million immigrants have made aliya; their expertise and talents have contributed immeasurably to the country's economic, scientific, academic and cultural life.

The reasons why Jews immigrate to Israel run deep within the history, faith and psyche of the Jewish people. According to Jewish biblical tradition, God gave the Land of Israel to Abraham and his descendants for all time. The believing Jew, therefore, sees the Land as part of the religious/national heritage of the Jewish people, and attaches special merit to living there.

Modern Zionism, the century-old political movement for the return of the exiled Jewish people to their historic homeland, is the secular side of this same coin: inspired by a mix of 19th century nationalism and centuries of Jewish homelessness and oppression, Zionism sees Israel as the Jewish homeland - a place where all Jews can achieve fullest expression of their Jewish identity as well as a refuge for the persecuted.

By far the largest numbers of immigrants come to Israel from what Israelis term 'the countries of distress' - places where Jews are unwelcome, harassed or actively persecuted. Throughout its 53 years, however, Israel has also welcomed hundreds of thousands of emigrants from the western world - people driven principally by idealism. Some 200,000 have immigrated to Israel from the Americas during this period, and more than double that number from Western Europe (not including Holocaust survivors). Immigrants today are attracted not only by their faith or Zionism but also by lifestyle and employment opportunities in the modern high-tech nation that Israel has become.

Jewish history began about 4,000 years ago (c. 17th century BCE) with the patriarchs - Abraham, his son Isaac and grandson Jacob. The Book of Genesis relates how Abraham was summoned from Ur of the Chaldeans to Canaan to bring about the formation of a people with belief in the One God. When a famine spread through Canaan, Jacob (Israel), his twelve sons and their families settled in Egypt, where their descendants were reduced to slavery and pressed into forced labor.

After 400 years of bondage, the Israelites were led by Moses out of Egypt and back to the Land of Israel promised to their forefathers (c. 13th-12th centuries BCE). Over the next 13 centuries, the Jewish people enjoyed periods of monarchy, independence and autonomy in the Land, interspersed with eras of foreign domination. Following the destruction of the Second Temple and their expulsion by the Romans in 70 CE, the majority of the Jews were dispersed throughout the world.

The Jewish national idea, however, was never abandoned, nor was the longing to return to their homeland. Throughout the centuries, Jews have maintained a presence in the Land, in greater or lesser numbers, and uninterrupted contact with Jews abroad has enriched the cultural, spiritual and intellectual life of both communities.

Zionism, the political movement for the return of the Jewish people to their homeland, founded in the late 19th century, derives its name from "Zion", the traditional synonym for Jerusalem and the Land of Israel. In response to continued oppression and persecution of Jews in eastern Europe and disillusionment with emancipation in Western Europe, and inspired by Zionist ideology, Jews immigrated to Palestine towards the end of the nineteenth century. This was the first of the modern waves of aliya that were to transform the face of the country.

The First Aliya followed pogroms in Russia in 1881-1882, with most of the olim (immigrants) coming from Eastern Europe; a small number also arrived from Yemen. Members of Hibbat Zion and Bilu, two early Zionist movements that were the mainstays of the First Aliya, defined their goal as "the political, national, and spiritual resurrection of the Jewish people in Palestine." Though they were inexperienced idealists, most chose agricultural settlement as their way of life and founded moshavot - farmholders' villages based on the principle of private property. Three early villages of this type were Rishon Lezion, Rosh Pina, and Zikhron Ya'akov. The First Aliya settlers encountered many difficulties, including an inclement climate, disease, crippling Turkish taxation and Arab opposition. Baron Edmond de Rothschild provided the moshavot with his patronage and the settlers with economic assistance, thereby averting the collapse of the settlement enterprise. The Yemenite olim, most of whom settled in Jerusalem, were first employed as construction workers and later in the citrus plantations of the moshavot.

Nearly 35,000 Jews came to Palestine during the First Aliya, with some 15,000 establishing new rural settlements.

The Second Aliya, in the wake of pogroms in Czarist Russia and the ensuing eruption of antisemitism, had a profound impact on the complexion and development of modern Jewish settlement in Palestine. Most of its members were young people inspired by socialist ideals. Many models and components of the rural settlement enterprise came into being at this time, such as "national farms" where rural settlers were trained; the first kibbutz, Deganya (1909); and Hashomer, the first Jewish self-defense organization in Palestine. The Ahuzat Bayit neighborhood, established as a suburb of Jaffa, developed into Tel Aviv, the first modern all-Jewish city. The Hebrew language was revived as a spoken tongue, and Hebrew literature and Hebrew newspapers were published. Political parties were founded and workers' agricultural organizations began to form. These pioneers laid the foundations that were to put the yishuv (the Jewish community) on its course towards an independent state.

In all, 40,000 Jews immigrated during this period.

This aliya, a continuation of the Second Aliya (which was interrupted by World War I), was triggered by the October Revolution in Russia, the ensuing pogroms there and in Poland and Hungary, the British conquest of Palestine and the Balfour Declaration. Most members of the Third Aliya were young halutzim (pioneers) from Eastern Europe. Although the British Mandatory regime imposed aliya quotas, the yishuv numbered 90,000 by the end of this period. The new immigrants built roads and towns, and projects such as the draining of marshes in the Jezreel Valley and the Hefer Plain were undertaken. The General Federation of Labor (Histadrut) was established, representative institutions for the yishuv were founded (the Elected Assembly and the National Council), and the Haganah (the Jewish defense organization) was formed. Agricultural settlement expanded, and the first industrial enterprises were established.

Approximately 40,000 Jews arrived in Palestine during the Third Aliya; relatively few returned to their countries of origin.

The Fourth Aliya was a direct result of the economic crisis and anti-Jewish policies in Poland, along with the introduction of stiff immigration quotas by the United States. Most of the immigrants belonged to the middle class and brought modest sums of capital with which they established small businesses and workshops. Tel Aviv grew. Notwithstanding the yishuv's economic woes, with an economic crisis in 1926 - 1928, the Fourth Aliya did much to strengthen the towns, further industrial development and reinstate Jewish labor in the villages.

Youth Aliya was originally founded (1933) to rescue Jewish youth from Nazi Germany. Some 5,000 teenagers were brought to the country before World War II and educated at Youth Aliya boarding schools; followed, after the war, by an additional 15,000, most of them Holocaust survivors. Today Youth Aliya villages continue to play a vital role in the absorption of young newcomers, as well as offering thousands of disadvantaged Israeli youth a second chance.

In all, the Fourth Aliya brought 82,000 Jews to Palestine.

The signal event of this aliya wave was the Nazi accession to power in Germany (1933). Persecution and the Jews' worsening situation caused aliya from Germany to increase and aliya from Eastern Europe to resume. Many of the immigrants from Germany were professionals; their impact was to be felt in many fields of endeavor. Within a four-year period (1933-1936), 174,000 Jews settled in the country. The towns flourished as new industrial enterprises were founded and construction of the Haifa port and the oil refineries was completed. Throughout the country, "stockade and tower" settlements were established. During this period - in 1929 and again in 1936-39 - violent Arab attacks on the Jewish population took place, called "disturbances" by the British. The British government imposed restrictions on immigration, resulting in Aliya Bet - clandestine, illegal immigration.

By 1940, nearly 250,000 Jews had arrived during the Fifth Aliya and the yishuv's population reached 450,000. From this time on, the practice of "numbering" the waves of immigration was discontinued - which is not to say that aliya had exhausted itself.

During World War II, the aliya effort focused on rescuing Jews from Nazi-occupied Europe. Some olim entered the country on visas issued under the "White Paper" quota; the majority came as illegal immigrants. This immigration, called Aliya Bet, arrived by land and by sea, from Europe and the Middle East, in contravention of the Mandatory Government's orders.

The loss of contact with European countries, the hazards of maritime travel under wartime conditions, and the difficulty in obtaining vessels for transport of illegal immigrants placed severe constraints on Aliya Bet. Several boatloads of immigrants who managed to reach Palestine were sent back by British authorities upholding the quota system. Many lost their lives at sea or in the Nazi inferno in Europe.

Overland, 1,350 Syrian Jews were escorted to Palestine in an intricate and audacious operation.

During the years 1944 - 1948, the Jews in Eastern Europe sought to leave that continent by any means. Emissaries from the yishuv, Jewish partisans and Zionist youth movements cooperated in establishing the Beriha (escape) organization, which helped nearly 200,000 Jews leave Europe. The majority settled in Palestine.

From the end of World War II until the establishment of Israel (1945-1948), illegal immigration was the major method of immigration, because the British, by setting the quota at a mere 18,000 per year, virtually terminated the option of legal immigration. Sixty-six illegal immigration sailings were organized during these years, but only a few managed to penetrate the British blockade and bring their passengers ashore. In 1947, 4500 immigrants on the Exodus were sent back to Europe by the Mandatory government. The British stopped the vessels carrying immigrants at sea, and interned the captured immigrants in camps in Cyprus; most of these persons only arrived in Israel after the establishment of the state. Approximately 80,000 illegal immigrants reached Palestine during 1945-48.

The number of immigrants during the entire Mandate period, legal and illegal alike, was approximately 480,000, close to 90% of them from Europe. The population of the yishuv expanded to 650,000 by the time statehood was proclaimed.

On May 14, 1948 the State of Israel was proclaimed. This was followed in 1950 by the Law of Return, which granted every Jew the automatic right to immigrate to Israel and become a citizen of the state.

Early Years of Statehood

With the gates wide open after statehood was declared, a wave of mass immigration brought some 687,000 Jews to Israel's shores, doubling the population in just three years. The immigrants included, inter alia, survivors of the Holocaust from displaced persons' camps in Germany, Austria and Italy; a majority of the Jewish communities of Bulgaria and Poland and one third of the Jews of Romania. Marseilles was turned into a take-off point for European immigrants. While they waited for ships, Israel, through the Jewish Agency, helped house and feed the immigrants, as well as teach them Hebrew. In May 1949, when the Imam of Yemen agreed to let 45,000 of the 46,000 Jews in his country leave, Israeli transport planes flew them 'home' in the fabled Operation Magic Carpet. In 1951, in another magnificently organized airlift - Operation Ezra and Nehemiah - 121,000 Jews were brought to Israel from Iraq, ending 2,500 years of Jewish life there. Libyan Jewish life ended that same year, with the emigration of its 32,000 Jews to Israel.

The immigrants encountered many adjustment difficulties. The fledgling state had just emerged from the bruising war of independence, was in a grievous economic condition, and found it difficult to provide hundreds of thousands of immigrants with housing and jobs. Much effort was devoted towards absorbing the immigrants: ma'abarot - camps of tin shacks and tents - and later permanent dwellings were erected; employment opportunities were created; the Hebrew language was taught; and the educational system was expanded and adjusted to meet the needs of children from many different backgrounds. By the mid-1950s, almost all the newcomers were in permanent housing.

1950s and 1960s

In the 1950s, the character of immigration began changing. The gates of Eastern Europe were closing, and the focus moved to North Africa. Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia won their independence - and turned against their Jewish communities. Some 240,000 North African Jews came to Israel between 1952 and 1964. While they dominated the immigration scene, others came too - from Hungary, Romania and Poland, Egypt and Iran, India and Latin America.

By the mid-1960s, Israel had built 448 new settlements and 25 new towns. Its agriculture was thriving, industry was developing, production was up by 50 percent and the rate of building was one of the highest in the world. Immigrants were now taken directly to apartments rather than transit camps, and many of them attended the 74 ulpanim (Hebrew language schools) nationwide.

1967 to the 1970s

Israel's victory in the Six-Day War of June 1967 rocketed immigration out of a mid-decade slump. During the three years following the war, 23,900 people came from Western Europe and 17,900 from the United States. The war also ignited Jewish consciousness among the 2,500,000 Jews in the Soviet Union. Combined with growing détente, the result was a new wave of immigration: by the end of the 1970s, 140,000 Soviet Jews had emigrated to Israel.

In the last two decades of the twentieth century, Ethiopia's ancient isolated Jewish community began making its way to Israel. A secret rescue mission that Israel began in the mid-1970s to save Ethiopia's Jews from drought and civil war culminated in two mass airlifts. From November 1984 to January 1985, a secret 45-day airlift dubbed Operation Moses brought 8,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel. It was followed in May 1991 by Operation Solomon, when Israel airlifted the remaining 14,200 Jews out of Ethiopia in 36 hours, bringing today's Ethiopian Jewish community in Israel to 56,000 people.

Liberalization in the USSR and its collapse in 1991 opened a floodgate of Jewish emigration. Since 1989, over one million Jews have immigrated to Israel from the former Soviet Union. During the early 1990s, Israel also made smaller-scale but no less daring rescues of Jewish communities from war-torn Georgia, Moldava, Tajikistan, former Yugoslavia and Chechnya, and has at last managed to bring nearly all of the remnant Jewish communities of Syria and Yemen to safety in Israel. There are still 'countries of distress' - places such as the Transdniester region of Moldova, Tajikistan, the Ukraine, Azerbaijan and some Arab countries - where Israel keeps a watchful eye on the fate of Jewish communities.

Today, as 53 years ago, immigrants continue to make their way to Israel, and Israel continues to welcome them. But their arrival in Israel, whether by drastic last-minute rescue or through years of planning, is only the beginning of the story. What follows is finding a place to live, to study and to work, learning Hebrew and adjusting to the vociferous democracy and vivid, multi-cultural, multi-ethnic society that is today's Israel. In marked contrast to almost every other nation, Israel not only welcomes its immigrants but also rejoices in them. It purposefully attracts them with job retraining, housing and tax concessions. Israel has more than five decades of experience in helping immigrants settle in. Jews who come to the Jewish State - from wherever they were born - are welcomed, helped, feted and eventually integrated into the colorful mosaic of modern Israel.